My mum kept telling me that she wasn't well almost every time I rang, and then my sister told me that it seemed quite serious so I flew home from Canada to see her (12 June 2013). I took her to the doctors on the following Monday, they had previously been telling us that it was due to her kidney stone (which was waiting for surgery), but she had been very confused, not making sense, hallucinating, having severe headaches, losing her balance and collapsing quite a lot and vomiting. My mum had suffered with kidney stones before, and as we kept telling the doctors, these were not normal symptoms. A week later they found out she had a brain tumor.
I will never forget the day we saw the neurosurgery consultant, he showed us the scan (an image that will never leave my mind) and told us that it was a glioblastoma multiforme grade 4, an aggressive and fast growing tumor. He told us there is no cure for this type of cancer, all they could do was try radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Obviously, we will try anything!
So eventually (what felt like forever) the radiotherapy and chemotherapy dates came through, we were all relieved, excited, nervous, just full of mixed emotions, I cant even begin to imagine how my mum was feeling. Until it came to the first day of radiotherapy, she was so nervous, she was confused, not making much sense again, but I put all this down to nerves and added extra pressure to the one place she doesn't need it, the brain! But when she came out of the radiotherapy with the nurse she said, 'that was nothing' with a big smile on her face, and that was fantastic to see!
